Unwilling
by MerylJane
Summary: In which, uncharacteristically enough, Tony comes back for a visit and . . . helps? Fixing, yet again, the mess that is Freddie and Effy's relationship.


A/N: So this week's Skins was just a bit too intense for my poor, American brain to handle. Haha. I was all, "How do I fix this?" And I also missed Tony, so . . . here you go. Tony seems (to me) incredibly out of character, but I am working under the assumption that he has matured a bit. I feel repetitive, as I've already written a story sort of similar to this, but I feel that's what fanfiction is for, anyway, changing what you dislike about your favorite fiction. And this is pretty stream-of-consciousness and unedited, so I apologize.

There was a part of Freddie Mclair that wanted to ask the boy in the seat next to his whether it frightened him to be riding in buses, since his accident.

However, there was a considerably larger part that wanted to scream, "What the fuck is wrong with your sister?"

Naturally, this part won, and the question came out, accompanied with a, "She's completely bloody mental!"

The boy laughed, his little mouth slightly open. He looked too much like his sister. "I don't believe we've met. How do you know who I am?"

"Oh, um, your paper there," he said, looking just a bit embarrassed of his outburst. "It says 'Tony Stonem.' And I think I've seen a picture somewhere."

"You're Effy's boyfriend," he said, amused, thinking of his beloved sister with a fond look, and seeming especially amused when the boy's eyes showed a flash of desperation and sadness.

"Not quite."

"You're not that Cook bloke, are you?"

Shaking his head, Freddie answered, "She's told you about _him_, then?"

Tony looked at him with still amused sympathy and understanding. "She chose him over you?"

"You haven't quite got it," he told him solemnly. "That did sort of happen, at first. That I could at least comprehend. This, however, isn't something even _Effy_ would do. I thought," he continued, babbling on uncontrollably.

Tony looked only a little concerned when he asked, "What did Effy do?"

Freddie didn't even want to say it aloud. "So, what are you doing here, anyway?" he said evasively instead. "Aren't you off at university?"

"I wanted to visit Effy. And my parents. So, what did she do to you?"

"Have you talked to them recently? Effy, and your parents?"

"Not too recently. I've been busy with school. Why?" Actually, he had talked to Effy briefly about once every two weeks, but the conversations never lasted more than a few minutes. They talked about her friends a little, and that was about it. And he'd barely spoken with his parents since he'd left.

"You know that your dad left, right? 'Cause your mum was cheating on him?" Normally, Freddie wasn't one to do this sort of thing, share other people's secrets and speak out of place. But today, he was in a state of extreme emotional distress, and, quite frankly, did not care much about hurting someone's feelings.

"Fuck," was all Tony could say.

"I think Effy's been missing you," said Freddie thoughtfully, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him before.

"What did she do?" he wondered, now serious and genuinely concerned. If Tony was sure of anything, it was that his sister could make incredibly irrational decisions when she was freaked out. Like himself, she had no limits. She was not afraid to go to extremes. "Is she okay?"

"She's perfectly fine," he said angrily, remembering her insistence that Katie had "pulled her hair and choked her."

_Where were the bruises? Was she just a liar?_

_And even if she was telling the truth, it was inexcusable to just_ leave her there. It was wrong and irrational. And she hadn't even given any indication that Katie had attacked her or anything.

But . . .

_Hit me_, she had begged. _Just once. _

Suddenly, sympathy and even empathy washed through his body, strange and unwelcome.

He felt like crying. So vulnerable.

Maybe _he_had been lying to Tony and to himself. Maybe Effy wasn't perfectly fine.

When he brought himself back to the present, Tony was watching him expectantly. "Did she do something to someone?"

Passively, he told him, "She hit my sort of girlfriend with a rock. She had to get nine stitches. She was tripping, though, Effy was. And we were in the woods camping and she came to my shed before and said she had something to tell me, but . . . and some really crap things had just happened, but she just left her there, in the middle of the fucking night, and she came and found me, and we . . . And she didn't think to _tell_ me."

This may have surprised Tony, if he even understood it, but he was good at hiding emotions. _Just like Effy,_ Freddie noted unhappily.

"Wow," Tony said, and thought instinctively of Cassie.

"And she said that Katie attacked her. And Katie's only my girlfriend to make Effy jealous because she was screwing Cook who used to be my best friend, and it sort of came out that Effy and I wanted to be together, so things got bad." Crap, he sounded like bloody JJ or something. Freddie did not ramble. Cool, collected Freddie did not lose his composure that way.

"So, what's your name, anyway?" Tony asked, taking all of the new, jumbled information in casually and easily.

"Freddie."

Tony's eyes lit up with recognition. Freddie was one subject the siblings had touched on. Of course, they didn't speak about him in depth, but Tony knew. He could sense things, and the way Effy had said Freddie's name was enough for him. "Oh, _you're_ Freddie." He looked smug. "She's in love with you, you know," he said simply. "You love her, right?" he said confidently, as he knew the answer.

"Did she . . . tell you that?"

"Course not! Do you _know _Effy? She thinks love is a dirty word. She'd prefer it if it didn't exist at all. Or she thinks she would, anyway," he said with a smirk.

_But he knew that all too well, didn't he? _Freddie's expression communicated this thought.

"You're in love with her too, right?" he asked again.

Though he didn't quite nod, his expression was obviously a surrendering affirmative.

"Look, let me talk to her and get her sorted, okay?"

"But I don't care," he said tritely and persistently. "She's insane."

"Freddie," Tony said as the bus halted to a stop. "What would you have done in her position?"

"I, I don't know." In truth, he hadn't even tried to put himself in Effy's position. He hadn't wanted to.

"Think about it," he told him wisely. "And make sure you're nice to her when she finds you later," he finished, as an afterthought, as he stood up, leaving the bus and Freddie behind him.

…………………

Tony felt strange, knocking on his own door. But he did it anyway, expecting his mum or Effy to answer and be somewhat pleasantly surprised with his presence.

However, after two solid minutes of banging, he came to the conclusion that no one was coming. So he let himself in easily. He didn't call out. He knew they were home, because the car was in the driveway. He soon found that they weren't on the first level (which, though he didn't care, was a mess). With a desperate need to talk to Effy, he ran upstairs to his old room, which he had given her before he left.

She was on the bed, above the duvet cover. The mid-day sun was bright outside, but the room was dark. She was lying on her stomach and may have been asleep. The pillow looked moist, like she had been crying. He walked in and placed a hand on her back, not wanting to startle her.

"Eff?" She jumped.

"Katie!"

So she _had_ been asleep. And dreaming.

"Effy, it's me."

"Tony?" She looked like hell, or maybe even worse than that. Tony was sure that she had never looked so awful, so broken.

However, he was wrong. He had just been unconscious the other time. "What the fuck are _you _doing here?" she asked weakly. This was what the great Effy Stonem had been reduced to.

This is what he had left.

"You know, I've had problems with loving, too, Effy," he told her gently, sitting next to her on the edge of the bed.

She snorted sarcastically, as if to say, "Duh."

"Tony," she said after a long, full pause, "You don't know what I did." Disgusted with herself, she started to let herself cry for what seemed like the hundredth time in the past few days.

"I would have hit her with a rock, too. But I don't like the fact that you were tripping in the woods in the middle of the night."

Tears were pouring out of her eyes freely and uncharacteristically now. "How did you – "

"On the bus on the way over here, I sat next to Freddie. Nice young man."

"He hates me."

"Yeah. So? He's also in love with you."

"He _hates_ me, Tony."

"No, I set him straight. Just give him a little while to be calm and think about everything."

"I've missed you," she allowed herself to say sincerely.

He put his arm around her in a way only Tony really could. She _had _missed her brother. Really.

"I love you, Effy."

"I love you," she choked, almost like the words were painful on her throat, and then she grabbed him, hugging him to her tightly. Love could be easy enough, if she tried.

……………………..

Freddie was lying exactly where Effy had lain before, out in the middle of the water. It was really rather nice there, but it was much colder today than it had been the time they had swam to each other and kissed. This time, things were more difficult. He remembered thinking that things couldn't get more complicated and reprimanded his former self for being so foolish and naïve.

She had to find him now. Even if he wasn't angry anymore, she owed him at least that.

She ran to the edge of the water and saw him. He noticed her and sat up. But he wasn't moving. He was going to stay right where he was.

It was her turn.

She swam faster than he'd ever seen anyone swim before, except maybe on television during the Olympics.

He did, however, reach his hand out to her when she got to him, and she grabbed it.

"You talked . . . to my brother," she said in a voice that wasn't entirely satisfied, mostly to stall time until she had to apologize.

"I thought about it, everything, and I . . ." he trailed off, looking in her eyes and letting her know she was forgiven. "Just one thing, though, Effy," he said seriously, "What were you going to tell me in my shed the other day?"

Unwillingly, she hugged him and his her face, feeling scared and out of her element. He wasn't letting her off the hook, though.

He looked at her more solemnly, his eyes expectant.

Just as she was about to start (at the risk of sounding like her brother) with, "I think that maybe I sort of . . ." Freddie kissed her.

"I love you," he whispered.

It was so silly how such an insignificant word that she had spent so much time and energy trying to avoid had such an effect on her.

It wasn't supposed to be important, but it felt important when she looked at him, her eyes blazing into his, and said with a hint of a smile, "I love you, Freddie."

A/N: I was trying to remember what Tony had said to Michelle when she begged him to say he loved her, but I couldn't, so I guessed. Whatever. I know that this is silly and sickeningly sweet and never going to happen, but I needed to get this figment of my imagination out into the world. Please review anyway!


End file.
